Conventional procedures for testing and measuring the performance of television equipment are not suitable for a full evaluation of all effects which can be introduced by complex digital signal processing in advanced television systems (ATV). Currently used test procedures, which were developed for conventional television (e.g. NTSC) environments, are not adequate for testing and evaluating newly proposed ATV systems comprising for example, high definition (HDTV), improved definition (IDTV) and enhanced definition (EDTV) television receivers and displays. In such systems, advanced processing circuits comprising adaptive filters and companding techniques, are subject to threshold problems and depend heavily on picture detail. In addition, the extensive use of field/frame delays can introduce motion artifacts. Evaluation of these advanced systems therefore requires the observation of systems both in the frequency and time domains.
Procedures used for testing conventional television systems rely on the use of stationary test images such as resolution charts, geometrical patterns and color bars. These procedures cannot reveal distortions of moving detail, caused by filtering techniques used in some of the ATV systems, nor can they reveal other artifacts occurring as a result of temporal processing which can only be identified in connection with varying levels of luminance contrast and color saturation, a wide variety of color transitions and variable positioning of test pictures on the TV screen.
The object of the instant invention is to provide the means for testing a combination of the most important parameters associated with advanced television systems.